More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."

Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people -- about 33,000 of them women -- in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.

Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.

The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.

In case you didn't get that - he's talking about your mom, yo.

The one number that stands out like a turgid throbbing member straining for release is the 88% of the women born in the forties who, quite frankly, acted like a bunch of simple Kentucky girls who hit the big city and had trouble keeping their knees in front of their ears (if you know what I mean, and if you're Dr. Laura, there shouldn't be any question). They would be a part of the "If It Feels Good - Do It" Generation who were fortunate to have come of age during a time of great innovations and discoveries. I speak, of course, of the general availability of the birth control pills (1960, 1965, 1972) and the invention of the clitoris (1969).

The rest, as they say, was a lot of moaning, cries to heaven and post-coital pudding...